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VA1DER's avatar
VA1DER
Streaming Star
2 months ago
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What Roku has DD+ -> DD conversion?

I have come across a couple threads that suggest that the Ultra 4640 and 4800/4802 have a DD+ decoder inside them and that they will convert DD+ to DD internally and send DD to the TV/AVR.  I see some conflicting information though.  Including some posts that suggest that these devices used to have the capability, but that more recent software updates have removed this capability.

Can anyone confirm that these (or any) Roku devices will internally transcode DD+ to DD?

I have an old AVR that I love, it is otherwise better audio quality than almost anything on the market today, but it supports DD/DTS only.  This has been enough until recently, since most streaming has moved to DD+ only.

Thanks.

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  • atc98092's avatar
    atc98092
    2 months ago

    Manual trigger? No, to use the transcoder you need to set the audio to DD output, meaning everything gets transcoded to DD, even DTS. You would have to enter the audio menu settings to switch if you have a DTS video.

12 Replies

  • atc98092's avatar
    atc98092
    Community Streaming Expert
    2 months ago

    The original Ultra 4640 was capable, and you are correct that the latest Ultra models (4800/4802/4850) can as well. The 4801 (only sold at Walmart) was the exception in that it did not have the DD encoder.

    • VA1DER's avatar
      VA1DER
      Streaming Star
      2 months ago

      The 4640 looks to have an optical TOSLINK output.  So with it I can transcode DD+ to DD and output that over TOSLINK?  This is actually ideal, as I'm sending my audio stream to my AVR over TOSLINK now.

      The 48XX's appear to have only HDMI.  I assume then that the Roku will generally output either DD or DD+ over HDMI as EDID tells it the end device is capable of?

      I ask this because my HDMI splitter/audio extractor reports back by EDID that it is capable of everything (DD, DD+/TrueHD, etc).  But my AVR upstream of it is only capable of DD & DTS.  If I get a 48XX, I may have to set it's audio output to manual to turn off DD+.  If I do that, will it still transcode DD+ channel streams to DD, or will it simple tell the streaming service not to bother with surround and revert to stereo?

      • atc98092's avatar
        atc98092
        Community Streaming Expert
        2 months ago

        Yes, the 4640 was the last model with an optical audio out. The only way to get an optical connection is to use an HDMI audio extractor. 

        The 4640 was released in Oct 2016, so now a nine year old model. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend buying one if you could find one, partially because it would be used and partially because Roku has made so many improvements with the later models. If Toslink is something you absolutely must have, then you either need to use an audio extractor box or look for something other than a Roku.

  • VA1DER's avatar
    VA1DER
    Streaming Star
    2 months ago

    Thanks so much!  This is exactly what I needed to know.  

    Just to be sure, Is the 4850 the current Ultra?  It's so hard to find it by model number unless it's being sold used. As far as I can tell:
    4800 = Roku Ultra 2020
    4802 = Roku Ultra 2022
    4850 = Roku Ultra 2024

    • atc98092's avatar
      atc98092
      Community Streaming Expert
      2 months ago

      That is the correct year for the 4800 and 4850. The 4802 was Oct 2021.

      I will say that there is an Auto selection for the audio output, which does switch automatically between DD and DTS. However, it's expecting the HDMI connection to handshake with an AVR to determine what codecs the AVR supports. If you use an extractor, I have doubts there would be any setting that could tell the Roku to only send DD or DTS. Since mine are connected directly to an AVR that supports almost all audio codecs, I can't say from experience if it will do so with an extractor. But I have my doubts, which is why I said that auto switching isn't possible in your scenario.